Luck of the Draw
by Nutter101
Summary: Fem!Charlie. What waits in store for Wendy Bucket when she finds the last Golden Ticket?
1. Ordinary Girl

**A/N: Thought I'd start a new fic. Will still be writing "More Than Her Mother" but sometimes you just get writers block with one subject so you want to write another fic.**

**This contains a female Charlie.**

**Also, while I'm fully aware of the Buckets all being British, I'm going to stick with US currency. Let's just say the four grandparents, having been friends for years, had all decided to go to America to better themselves in their younger days. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I think it's plausible.**

**Also, I apologise if some of my American words aren't to the satisfaction of my readers. I'll try, but I can't make any promises.**

**Oh, and this is the Johnny Depp version. I like Gene Wilder, but I like Johnny Depp more.**

* * *

**ORDINARY GIRL**

There was nothing extraordinary about Wendy Bucket. She'd never been exceptionally good at anything, she wasn't beautiful and she'd never had anyone she could really call a true friend.

Well, when there isn't enough money knocking about to feed your family, it does rather put the mockers on you.

Since she started Kindergarten at the age of five, she'd been ridiculed for her clothing; her woolly jumpers had holes in, her pants were too big and her shoes were always dull and, more often than not, her soles were hanging off and flapping underneath her feet.

Without having any friends at school, she desperately tried to stick to her studies, but many of her classmates would sabotage any effort Wendy put into her work. If they couldn't pass the class with straight-A's, then Wendy couldn't either.

It was in Third Grade that Wendy gave up caring about her work. She knew everyone hated her for trying to do well and there was one boy she had to sit next to who would often swap all his test papers over when she wasn't looking and she would have to receive an 'F' while he got the 'A-minus.'

One day, however, she decided to get her own back (quite uncharacteristic for the greasy-haired brunette.)

She purposely put in all the wrong answers on her test paper, knowing full-well that he would swap it anyway.

When the results came back in the next lesson, there were two 'F' grades instead of one. Wendy was satisfied with herself and the cheater got his comeuppance.

Needless to say, he never tried it again.

Wendy never got to the Eighth Grade at Middle School.

On her thirteenth birthday, she never showed up to school. Oh, it wasn't through illness or truancy, but she felt it was her duty to look after her family.

Her father worked for pittance at the local toothpaste factory and the wage was barely enough to get all seven members of the Bucket family off cabbage soup.

Wendy had insisted though (even after many protests from her parents and grandparents) that her place in the house was providing stability for the family.

Strangely enough she didn't have to look far.

So it had turned out, the newsagent at the end of the street was looking for someone to deliver the morning papers after his last paperboy moved to a different town.

Wendy had signed up for job. True, she only got five dollars an hour, but for three hours each seven days a week, it did mount up.

The newsagent himself had considered the plain girl with the straggly hair and holes in her shoes as the best little papergirl he'd ever seen. She was certainly better than the boys he'd employed.

He had given her a bicycle for delivering papers to the locals. Admittedly it wasn't best suited, being that it had belonged to a boy. It was very awkward being a girl, trying not to get stuck the crossbar with a ridiculously high seat.

It was then, when he saw her physically struggling just to stay on, that he ordered a girl's bike be sent to the shop.

Three weeks later, Wendy arrived at the shop at the usual time of five o'clock in the morning ready to just grab the three sacks of newspapers and be off on her rounds.

Imagine her surprise then when she arrived to find a very elegant pushbike on the front steps. Not able to hide her curiosity, she read the attached note.

_For a very wonderful papergirl. Hope there is no longer a struggle to mount.  
Tony_

It was evident it had been for her; he only had one papergirl.

Once she got on that method of transportation, there was no stopping her. It was so much easier to ride a bike made for a girl and she finished her rounds quicker; perhaps for the ease of the new vehicle.

After a week and her new-found efficiency, he doubled her wages and offered her a job working on the counter at the shop after finishing her morning rounds.

True, it was eight in the morning until six in the evening, but if it brought home the bacon, it was worth it.

Working at the shop was certainly an improvement to the family funds.

They could afford to have a proper Sunday dinner, even if the chicken, pork or whatever wasn't the largest.

Meat may have been sparse on the seven plates, but vegetables were cheap enough and with a little bit of gravy it was more than ample.

She was sixteen now, though, and she didn't have long until her birthday.

One day, as she walked home from the shop, flyers were being stuck to lampposts, advertising an offer Mr. Willy Wonka was handing out. It was the chance to enter his famous chocolate factory.

Wendy's Grandpa Joe had once worked for the chocolatier and used to tell Wendy all-manner of stories about him; about the sweetshop that used to be on the corner of Cherry Street (now the newsagents where she worked) and the tale of Prince Pondicherry, which she had always been amused by.

The Indian Royal surely must have known about chocolate's tendency to melt; common sense should have told him, yet he refused to listen.

When it had all melted, however, he requested another one. He certainly wasn't the brightest Prince in the world.

Wonka didn't have the time to spend planning another, though, for he had others on his mind. Since expanding the business from the tiny little candy store, he now had a larger-than-life factory with equally large problems.

Spies were being sent in to pilfer all his secret recipes from under his nose. Perhaps he'd hoped, at the time, people could actually be trusted, though Wendy suspected after the incident, that he'd find it very hard to trust anyone again.

Once he found out about all his wonderful ideas being stolen (even seeing it with his own two eyes where they had set up marquees in the same street his store was originally on) he dismissed all his workers and announced the permanent closure of his factory.

Wendy often wondered why he would say such a thing if he never intended to, for the factory was still up and running, though it was a mystery to all.

For one, not a soul was ever seen entering or leaving the grey building and yet Wonka chocolate bars were still coming out like no one's business.

Surely one man couldn't do all that on his own without his own health suffering? He'd probably lose his marbles.

Wendy often wondered if he did have someone helping him, though, up until now, there was no way anyone in the world would ever know.

Breaking from her reverie as the icy wind stung her cheeks, she continued reading, even though the light was exceptionally dim, being the middle of winter.

She noted it offered five individuals the opportunity to find a golden ticket inside the wrappers of five standard Wonka bars.

It was a game of luck, obviously, but she hoped whoever won them appreciated them.

Continuing her journey home (well, the little shack she and her family called 'home') she let her mind go blank of the upcoming madness and instead focused on getting out of the bitter cold.

She was quite soggy when she shut the front door however, what with all the snow that had been falling around her.

She could feel her feet were frozen, but that didn't stop her running to give her mother a hug, then her father, then each of her grandparents in turn.

Helena Bucket stood over the small stove heating a pot of beef stew. Even living in America, it was nice to enjoy good old British food every once in a while. It was something she and her husband grew up on.

Their own parents, the Buckets and the Millers, had known each other years before Noah and Helena met.

Times had been hard and George Bucket and Joe Miller had both been forced to take redundancy.

They had been working at the same meat factory since they left school at thirteen. Then, they were getting older; certainly approaching sixty and the foreman thought it best to let the old ones go, even after four decades of loyal service.

So they had taken their wives and children to America and all six of them had lived together in a little rundown shack.

Conversation had been at its peak between the four seniors at this time, though both Noah and Helena attempted to avoid each other as often as possible. It was all very awkward between the young couple.

Things had soon become easier for the family. Joe had gotten a job working for the 'New-Chocolatier-on-the-Block,' as it were, though George, sadly, couldn't get a job, so had to stay at home. He was, however, far from idle, so he was certainly doing his bit.

Two years into this new way of life, Noah and Helena had overcome their timidity towards one another and had married. Another year and they had a little baby girl they named Wendy.

Helena had always been fond of 'Peter Pan' and always wanted to name her daughter, if she had one, Wendy.

And then things changed again; Joe lost his job and wound up in bed like the other three elders. He'd been there ever since.

Wendy had heard all the stories about how she came to be, though didn't want to think too much of them now. Instead she settled for sitting on the bed with her grandparents, as the whole family ate their supper.

Wendy did regret something though. She had intended to buy some bread that morning, but with the chaos at work (especially the order that should have arrived that day and didn't) and Tony in a very irritable mood at the incompetence of the supplier, she had forgotten all about it; what with having to deal with all the customers herself while he was shouting the odds over the telephone.

But now, with the new-found competition, it was doubtful things were going to get any better and she dreaded the morning she may be presented with.

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**A/N: Well, there you go. Probably a bit all over the place and boring, but I thought people might like to know how everything came about. I've often noticed lack of imagination in fan-fiction, where they just go word-for-word from either the books or films, so I wanted to try and be a bit different.**

**Thanks for reading.**

**If all goes well, you might have chapter two up in the next few days… or maybe another for "More Than Her Mother," but we'll see.**


	2. The Competition Begins

**A/N: "The next few days," said I. Apologies but life is so hectic at the moment.**

* * *

**THE COMPETITION BEGINS**

So maybe Wendy had been wrong. The shop wasn't nearly as busy as she expected it would be, though that was before all the kids got out of school and both Tony and herself were bombarded by them coming in to relieve them of all the Wonka bars they'd only just stocked the shelves with.

Tony had never known his shop to take more money in one day than in a week.

By five o'clock, the shelves were empty and Tony put the 'Closed' sign up and shutters down.

Right now, though, he really wished he didn't still have thirty more cases of the chocolate in the store room.

Wendy helped him restock the shelves and remained silent as he ranted on about some of the kids that had entered his shop two hours earlier.

One of them thought he could take fifteen bars without paying and when Wendy caught him, he stomped on her foot, Tony heard her yelp and then he grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, causing the boy to drop all the chocolate bars and promptly threw him out of the door.

"And don't let me catch you again!" he had yelled, as he returned to the counter. "Are you alright?" he asked, in a softer tone to his young colleague.

"I'm fine, Tony, but I don't think manhandling customers is a good idea," she said, reasonably.

"Well, I'm afraid that's the problem with kids these days. Parents let them run riot and get away with murder, except you. Your parents taught self-respect; you'd be surprised how many don't nowadays."

Tony was still muttering about the smug brats and the cheek of the parents allowing them to do it as he approached the store cupboard.

Wendy remained shelf-stacking, when there was a knock on the door. She stopped the task at hand to greet the person on the other side of the door.

"I'm sorry. We're closed," she said.

"May I speak to the manager, please?" the man said, reasonably.

"Okay. Won't you come in?" and she stood aside, holding the door open for him. "Tony," she called, "there's a man here who wants to see you." And, with that, she returned to her shelf-stacking; whatever the man had to say was none of her business.

A few moments later, he returned from the store-room. "Well, what can I do you for?" he asked.

"My son told me of an incident that occurred this afternoon. Said that a girl punched him and you then threw him out of the shop." The man remained calm as he said it.

"Only half of that is true," Tony said, in his usual no-nonsense manner. "My young employee, Wendy here," he said, indicating the teen, "caught your son trying to steal fifteen Wonka bars. She was about to just take them from his arms and let nothing more be said on the matter, but he purposely trod on her foot in protest. When I heard Wendy's exclamation, I went to the source of the problem, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and removed him from my shop."

"I'm very sorry," the man apologised. "My son often lies but his mother always believes him. I came to verify the incident. His mother spoils him rotten, so he can get away with anything where she's concerned. She's also promised him all five Wonka tickets and he doesn't deserve a single one, in my view. He needs to learn respect before he gets rewarded, but I can tell my wife anything; it just goes in one ear and out the other."

"Well, now that's sorted out, we are actually closed," Tony reminded him.

"Oh, I am sorry," the man laughed, before turning to Wendy who had remained on her knees loading the shelves. "I'm also sorry for my son's actions. Take this," he offered, rummaging in his wallet, and he handed her fifty dollars.

Wendy really didn't want to.

"I don't bite," he smiled.

"I can't take it, sir. I'm sure you'd have done the same if it was someone else's child. I don't deserve it," she protested.

"Please take it for compensation, at least. It'll pay for a course of antibiotics if your toe gets infected."

Reluctantly she took it. Anyway, it would pay for some decent food on the dinner table.

"Thank you, sir," she said, quietly, tentatively taking it from the man.

"You're very welcome, young lady. I wish my son considered other people. His mother's just the same," he scowled, at the thought of his overbearing, selfish wife.

Shaking his head, he turned towards the door. As he opened it halfway, he turned back to Wendy. "You're a very quiet girl, aren't you?"

Wendy said nothing.

"Also very generous," Tony interrupted. "She's given me four years of her life, worked like a mule, had I don't know how many injuries and she's never complained once. Neither has she ever denied anything to anybody. If she was on her last nickel, she'd give it to someone else," he said.

Wendy could do nothing but blush at the compliments, he gave her.

"Well, than I can think of nobody who better deserves a golden ticket than you," the man, said, looking straight at Wendy. "Goodbye," he said, cheerily, has he left the shop.

Wendy just looked to Tony for answers.

"I really don't know," he replied, just as confused at the man. Clearly, greed hadn't gone to his head and he couldn't understand how such a generous man could have such a rude, selfish child.

* * *

At the end of her shift, Wendy went to her boss.

"Tony?" she asked.

"Mm," was the reply.

"Would you mind if I take some things for my family? I will pay."

"Take what you like, Wendy," he chuckled at her nervous promise.

And so she did. Two loaves of bread, one tub of butter, a shrink-wrapped chicken, a bag of carrots, a box of gravy stock, a small bag of cornflower and a cheesecake. When she found she still had ten dollars left over, she bought seven individual Wonka bars, one for each member of her family.

Wonka bars were only a dollar each so the last three dollars went into the charity box.

"We'll have a proper feast. We'll stuff ourselves silly," she smiled, as she rang up the till and bagged her goods. "See you in the morning, Tony," she said and left with a smile on her face.

As he watched her go, he couldn't help but laugh and she skipped down the street with a smile on her face, unable to contain her excitement at putting some decent food on the table.

* * *

As she got through the front door, she immediately went to hug her grandparents, then her dad, then her mum.

"You'll never guess what I've got," Wendy smiled, teasingly.

Noah looked slightly worried, Helena inquisitive.

Wendy then plonked the bag on the worktop. "Have a look at that for a feast."

It certainly was a luxury. They'd never been able to have meat in the week before now.

"Where did you get it from?" Helena asked.

That was a tricky one. "Well, a man gave me fifty dollars. I'm not even sure why, but he did, so I thought I'd put it to good use. That's tomorrow's tea, that is."

"Well, you must have done something right," Grandpa George said.

"Apparently," she replied, as she moved to sit on the bed in between her grandparents.

"I doubt all the winners of those tickets will. All those who'll win them will be spoiled, selfish brats who have everything handed to them on a silver platter."

"That's a bit unfair," Wendy replied. "Suppose there is one genuinely nice person who has to work for it but is very grateful when they actually get it."

"They won't be. They'll be rich," Grandpa George scoffed. "They're all the same. Give them an inch, they'll take a mile. And, while we're on the subject, the kid that finds the first ticket will be fat, fat, fat," he concluded, without hesitation.

Even if she didn't want to believe it, Wendy knew Grandpa George was right.

* * *

**AN: Okay, so there's that. I'm not entirely happy with it, but it's better than nowt.**


	3. Augustus Gloop

**AUGUSTUS GLOOP**

A few days had passed since word had been sent all around the world of Willy Wonka's Golden Tickets and the newsagents was buzzing with customers.

It was certainly the busiest Tony had seen for a while.

People were piling their hands with Wonka chocolate bars in the hope of finding tickets and throwing money on the counter left, right and centre, always more than enough, and then they would stuff the bars in their pockets and exit.

"Wait, your change!" Wendy called after one when they put an extra ten dollars on the counter.

"Keep it!" the woman yelled back and, before Wendy could even blink, the woman was gone and there were more customers before her eyes; the sight of all those people in such a hurry to get the bars home and rip the wrappers off, with the hope of finding a golden ticket inside, making her slightly dizzy.

Shaking her head, her eyes focused once more and any spare change any customer was leaving behind, Wendy put into the charity box.

She knew Mr. Barratt's wife was very sick and so Wendy had suggested to Tony that they put together a charity box to raise some money for her operation.

Once all the human traffic had cleared that day, by half past eleven, no less, not even three hours after they had opened, an older gent calmly approached the counter with a newspaper.

As Wendy took the dollar coin from his offered palm, she noticed the headline;

'_FIRST TICKET FOUND IN GERMANY_'

The man looked down at the girl before him, wondering why she was so interested. The front page picture told him all he needed to know.

"Greedy thing," he deduced. He only needed to look at the photograph to realise, as the large boy held a golden ticket in one hand, a bite mark taken from one corner, a half-eaten chocolate bar in the other and the brown substance all over his face.

"Good luck to him, I say," Wendy sighed, doubtful that she would ever be that lucky.

"Why? All greed does is leave them wanting more." He reminded her strongly of Grandpa George.

"No, what I meant was that he's lucky to have won one. When you consider that there are only five in the world, it's a great privilege to get one at all," Wendy smiled, weakly.

The man eyed her for a moment. She could be quite philosophical at times and he was seeing her now.

"How old are you, young lady?" he asked.

"Sixteen," she replied, in a quiet tone.

"I'll admit you should be in high school, but I admire your opinion. I can't think of very many people who would think like that. Very intelligent girl. I'm sure you'll go far." And, picking up his paper, he left for the door. "Toodle-oo!"

As Wendy restocked the shelves that afternoon, she began to ponder absent-mindedly of what it would actually be like to enter that wonderful factory.

It was right on her doorstep and she couldn't help but wonder what actually went on inside it.

For years, not a single person had ventured in or come out of that factory.

"I wonder how he does it?" she mused.

It wasn't a stupid question, by any means. Exactly how could he run such a large factory on his own? He'd have had to have help from someone, or he'd probably lose his mind running everything himself.

Shaking herself out of her trance, she made up her own answer. "Must be someone he trusts; someone who asks for so little, but gives so much. Like Grandpa Joe."

But then, Grandpa Joe had been dismissed years earlier, along with all of Mr. Wonka's other employees.

After all those recipes being handed out by his own workers, how would he manage to trust others again?

She'd have to consult Grandpa Joe on that one later.

"First sign of madness, that," Tony teased, playfully, "talking to yourself."

At least she'd get the answers she wanted to hear.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realise I was doing it." She laughed nervously, a tad embarrassed.

"Don't be sorry. I do it all the time. You can't fall out with yourself," he said. "You were thinking about those tickets, weren't you?" He'd certainly known Wendy long enough to understand how her mind worked.

"Yes," she sighed, dejectedly. "I just can't help but wonder what it's like in there. I don't suppose I'll ever see it, but it's nice to dream."

"Or is it a wish?" Tony asked. "Are you perhaps not Wendy Bucket, rather Cinderella?"

Wendy just looked at him, completely baffled, which made him laugh.

"A dream is a wish your heart makes?" he said with a grin.

"I think I read too much as a child," Wendy replied.

It wasn't often books came into the Bucket household, but when they did, they were usually presents for Wendy and she never put them down. It helped as well that her major gift for her eighth birthday was a library card and whenever she could she would go to borrow a book or two and read a little bit every night before bed.

"Well, I must say I'd always thought you were a bit of a bookworm; not that that's a bad thing. At least, I know what I can get you for your birthday."

"You don't need to get me anything," Wendy told him. "You're nice to me and that's better than any present I will ever have."

Tony sighed and knelt down beside her, deciding to give her a hand in restacking the shelves, though he had other motives.

"I've never known anyone else like you, Wendy. I've just been thinking about that boy," he said.

"The one who's just won the first ticket?" she asked.

"Yes," he clarified. "Seemed very greedy; not something I've ever known you for, but you've never had much. You know, I still remember the day you came to me – hair in messy braids; dirt on your face, but very sweet. I sincerely hope you get what you want, girl, because if those other winners are like that gluttonous brat then the only one who truly deserves it is you."

Wendy looked away from him at this. "I don't deserve anything, Tony. If I get one, it's nice; if I don't nothing's changed," and with that she got to her feet and entered the storeroom.

"God bless you, girl," Tony whispered after her. "You deserve more than what you've got now."

* * *

That night, Wendy walked home far more slowly than usual. She took one glance at the factory, before focusing her eyes on the snow-covered cobbles, subconsciously kicking a plastic bottle as she went.

Just before she entered her home, though, picked the bottle up and threw it in the nearest bin.

As she entered, she slowly approached her grandparents' bed and hugged each one of them in turn, though it was all done half-heartedly.

Grandpa George gave her a questioning look, as she then went to greet her father, who wasn't exactly over the moon, either. Even hugging her mother, Wendy, wasn't happy.

She was just being downright selfish. There were people in third world countries starving to death and all she seemed to care about was a silly ticket.

In the background, the television was on and the six o'clock news was coming to an end.

"_And finally, the first Wonka golden ticket has been found in Germany by one Augustus Gloop_," the announcer said.

Noah raised the volume slightly with the remote control, as the channel flicked from a newsroom to a butcher's shop, wherein a family of three stood, each member just as big-boned as the last.

In front of a skinned sheep stood a big beefy man in a white hat and overalls splattered with blood; in his hand he held a meat cleaver.

Beside him was a rosy-cheeked woman wearing a black suit that looked far too small for her large frame and in between them stood blond-haired boy with chocolate all around his mouth and on his hands. Just like the picture in the paper that day, he held in front of him his semi-complete golden ticket.

"_So, Augustus, how did you do it_?" a German reporter asked the boy.

"_Vell_," Augustus began, "_I am eating ze chocolate and zen I taste some-sink dat is not chocolate, valnut or peanut butter or caramel, or shprinkles. I look down and I find ze golten ticket._"

The flashing of cameras could be heard, as the reporter continued. "_And how did you zelebrate_?"

"_I eat more candy!_" Augustus replied, as he delved deep in his pocket, produced a Wonka bar, ripped it open and began scoffing.

"Revolting," Grandma Josephine said, disbelievingly.

"Told you he'd be a porker," Grandpa George said, happy his assumption was correct.

"No good can come from greed, Wendy, remember that," Grandpa Joe told her.

She smiled slightly, before her eyes focused on her father who was now rather distant.

"Daddy?" she called, gently. "What's wrong?"

"What?" he asked, shaking his head. Clearly he'd been pondering as Wendy had a few hours before. "Oh, just something at work; nothing for you to worry about," he answered gently.

"They've laid you off, haven't they?" Wendy asked.

"How did you know, darling?" Helena asked, surprised.

"I could sort of tell. Daddy's rarely miserable. But you don't have to worry, any of you. I can earn enough money for all of us. I promise you, we won't starve."

* * *

**A/N: So there's another one. Not too sure about it and I've probably repeated things from previous chapters, but it's the best I can come up with at the moment.**


End file.
